Blog: Ideas and Living

Language choice lesson: When you believe in the right of government to dictate to insurance companies what they MUST cover, you might also refer to it as government TAKING AWAY coverage when that mandate is removed. (maximum hyperbole achieved... break out the torches and pitchforks)

But when you actually ask WHY the government has any business making mandates to insurance companies and you don't take it as a given... removing a mandate might be perceived as a movement from coercion toward freedom.

As an aside, it's interesting for me to ponder people who run startups but react favorably to government control of health insurance and medicine. I think it's contradictory to do so. Startups do well because they enjoy a large degree of freedom on HOW and WHAT they do. And often they see no problem with DISRUPTING things like regulatory taxi cab franchises imposed by the government.

But, somehow medicine doesn't get the same treatment. I mean it's life or death! So questions like these don't automatically fall on the side of freedom:

Will government mandates will manage not to reduce innovation and investment? (blank out)

Don't insurance companies have a right to try to structure different business models that might change the entire industry? (blank out)

Who the hell would want to start an insurance company given a trend of increasing regulation and decreasing freedom? (Maybe the world just needs another social media app)

When costs get too high, how long will I have to wait for a procedure if I don't have political connections? (blank out)

When waits get too long, will I have to call my senator to get things moving along?

In the end, we still need to answer for Liberty. Does it matter? Do we still believe in it? And if so, by what right do mandates like the ACA force us to pay penalties for our only real right: to get to decide for ourselves what we will and will not do.

A lot of people think of a guarantee of health care or basic income as a matter of kindness. They think of it in terms of what kind of guarantees a prosperous society can provide. But will society remain prosperous if we go about destroying the foundation of prosperity? What about freedom?

Folks, I don't see it as a country that believes in freedom if the government can tell a person they MUST buy insurance or pay a few hundred dollars to the government for no reason.

What will they tell us we must tomorrow? I mean... all a government seems to need is the right justification, the right notion of duty which will get them 51% of the vote to support it. And that's assuming a weak one.

What could a guy who doesn't even give a shit about freedom like Vlad Putin require? Because a guy like that can get elected. (The people who use kindness as a motivation for instituting government control of medical care tend to assume benevolent government but that is neither a law of nature nor statistically probable)

Look... those of us who believe power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely, HAVE to ask this question: What happened to universal and inalienable rights? Because everything I hear about these days sounds fucking alienable to me.

Government should begin with the premise of every person having fundamental rights to act according to their judgment in pursuit of their lives, barring violations of the same rights against others (force and fraud).

In the age of pragmatism, these ideas are dated. It's old-school to even believe in principles. It's laughable to believe in absolutes. Whatever... I am what I am and I have never been good at winning the popularity contest.

My friends might be surprised to know that I'm with the Republicans that want to repeal the ACA entirely. Frankly I don't even think that would go far enough.

My vision for better health care is a government retreat from regulation of it. No mandates. Less regulation and thus more new entrants and more stale model disruption. New smaller organizations to organize and share the burden of medical risk (which is supposed to be the job of insurance companies). No artificial state boundaries. Delete tax deductions for health care insurance premiums for employers and make the playing field level for individual buyers. Voluntary charities to help provide insurance to those in need.